From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Voting Day
All I can say is, thank god for NASA. While the rest of the government flies off the rails in a Republican-fueled orgy of incompetence and Russia-approved chaos, NASA just keeps expanding our horizons and serving as our greatest ambassadors of curiosity, scientific advancement, and seemingly-effortless teamwork on a global scale. When the political shit gets too deep, you can always pop over to their web site to simultaneously lower your blood pressure and juice up your endorphins.
On their slate for July is the launch of a shiny new Mars rover, which will have a lot on its titanium plate when it touches down seven months later:
When the rover lands on the Red Planet in February 2021, it will touch down in Jezero Crater, the site of a lake that existed 3.5 billion years ago…where it will search for signs of ancient life, including mineral deposits and perhaps even microscopic fossils.
[T]he new rover will also be on a mission to lay the groundwork for future human exploration by testing out instruments that will use ground-penetrating radar for the first time, study weather science and convert carbon dioxide to oxygen.
The rover is unnamed at the moment, but an ongoing contest has whittled the suggestions down from 28,000 to nine. The whole world is voting online here to influence the final decision, but I think the Daily Kos community needs to weigh in on its own. Personally, my choice would've been "Squirrel!" Mainly just to hear the commentators say it like that. ("And we have liftoff of the Falcon rocket containing the Mars rover…Squirrel!") But I never get my way so bleh meh feh life is so unfair.
Go vote and I'll pass along the results to NASA for further study, along with my plan to lure Louie Gohmert into a Dragon capsule with a trail of pork rinds.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, January 23, 2020
Note: January is Bath Safety Month. It’s your duty as an American citizen to follow the #1 bath safety rule: keep a loaded firearm hidden under your bubbles at all times. (And don’t forget to scrub behind those ears, patriots. There could be secret Antifa hiding back there.)
—Your Friends at the NRA
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the California primary: 40
Days 'til the Frost Fest Outdoor Beer Festival in Fayetteville, Arkansas: 10
Current price tag of President Trump's border wall: $11 billion
What that amounts to per mile, making it the most expensive wall in the world: $20 million
Number of paid subscribers Netflix has at the moment: 167 million
Minimum number of songs Dolly Parton has composed: 3,000
Number of singles she's charted: 110
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
The Lord Impersonator is back again. This fella reappears every couple of years and causes no end of trouble. The jokester goes around persuading feeble-minded persons he is the Lord Almighty and that they are to do or say some perfectly idiotic thing under his instructions. […]
Quite a few people have been mishearing the Lord lately. The Rev. Pat Robertson thinks the Lord told the people of Dover, Pennsylvania they shouldn’t ask for His help anymore because they elected a school board Pat doesn’t like. And Rep. Richard Baker of Louisiana said right after Hurricane Katrina that “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did it.”
I kind of doubt Katrina was designed by the Lord as a form of urban renewal. I think it’s a big mistake for us to go around putting our own puny interpretations on stuff that happens and then claiming the Lord meant thus-and-such by it. In my humble opinion some folks should do a lot more listening to God and a lot less talking for Him.
—January 2006
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Weekend plans…
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CHEERS to Day 2. Wow, what a presentation. The Democratic impeachment managers cracked open a can of cold, fact-based whupass yesterday during their opening arguments in the trial of President Donald J. Trump. It was brutal. Hour after hour of broadsides fired directly at Individual-1 and his corrupt administration, mercilessly raking the sides of his tattered criminal enterprise until they… okay okay, you got me again, I didn’t watch any of it except part of Adam Schiff's opening remarks. I'm sorry!!! But if it's any consolation, I did watch this 4-minute summary by Joe Biden's rapid-response director Andrew Bates 75 times, and I don't care what anybody says that counts the same. Does too! Does too!
Thursday's agenda brings a bit of hallowed tradition with it. Per the Constitution, Day 3's proceedings will briefly pause at exactly 4:20 so the senators can line up and take a ceremonial hit off Ben Franklin's bong. Moments later, Lindsey Graham will crack his first smile in 20 years.
CHEERS to a very gay day. Sometimes the LGBT community goes through frustrating dry patches where our rights either march in place or slip backward, and sometimes the moral arc of the universe does that cool bending-towards-justice thing it does. That was the case yesterday, when three states advanced the notion that equality works best when it's got some legal teeth behind it:
New Jersey becomes the ninth state to ban the "gay/trans panic defense," in which defendants claim they're so traumatized by a person's sexual orientation or gender identity that they temporarily go craaaaaazy and have no choice but to commit assault.
Virginia finally has DEMOCRATS in charge of the government, which means the GOP can no longer stand athwart history yelling "Stop!” So on Tuesday, conversion therapy—in which psychological torture is used to try and change sexual orientation from gay to straight—was outlawed...the still-on-the-books ban on gay marriage was officially repealed...protections for trans students were passed...and gender-neutral language was approved for various legal documents. And you know what? The Virginia LGBT community didn’t have to strut around threatening lawmakers with assault weapons to make it happen.
Utah should not be on this list…but it is! The home of the Mormon church passed—with their blessing, no less—a ban on conversion therapy first sponsored by a Republican. Sure, there's a religious loophole, but it's still a sizable step forward.
And what was the Trump White House doing to acknowledge the LGBT community yesterday? Livestreaming an event attended by the Vice President Mike Pence during which gays and lesbians were said to be created by demons. I don’t know if that's true or not, but I hope Pence lets us all know when he gets down there.
CHEERS to today's edition of Then vs. Now: Martin Luther King Day in Maine Edition. My, what a difference a change in leadership makes. Janet Mills marked her first year in office this week, and our state has never been happier or less on-edge. See if you can detect a hint of a reason why:
Then (2011) [Republican] Gov. Paul LePage’s comment Friday that the NAACP can “kiss my butt” outraged leaders of state and national civil rights groups, who called his remarks “astonishing” and “troubling.” After meeting with business leaders in Sanford, LePage told WCSH-TV that he will not attend Martin Luther King Jr. Day events in Portland and Orono because he considers the group a special interest.
vs.
Now (2020) [Democratic] Gov. Janet Mills, U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, Secretary of State Matt Dunlap and some Bangor city officials were also among the dozens who attended the event organized by the Greater Bangor Area NAACP and the University of Maine. Mills emphasized the importance of accepting and welcoming people from across the country and world to Maine. … “We need to be more accepting of people who don’t look like us, who don’t come from the same city, town, state or country.”
This has been today's edition of Then vs. Now: Martin Luther King Day in Maine Edition.
CHEERS to timely retro-advice. Twenty-four years ago today—oh, this is so cute—Bill Clinton delivered a State of the union speech in which he told Republicans that they had to pinky-swear…
"...never, ever shut the federal government down again.
On behalf of all Americans, especially those who need their Social Security payments at the beginning of March, I also challenge the Congress to preserve the full faith and credit of the United States—to honor the obligations of this great nation as we have for 220 years; to rise above partisanship and pass a straightforward extension of the debt limit and show people America keeps its word."
Read that out loud to a Republican on the hill. They'll stand there all day waiting for the rimshot.
CHEERS to hair-raising discoveries. A new study reveals that, if you want your hair to turn gray faster, just expose yourself to stress. It’s a major factor, unsurprisingly, in why some people get gray hair sooner than others:
Ya-Chieh Hsu, a stem cell biologist, found that stress causes nerves involved in the fight-or-flight response to pump out a hormone which wipes out the stem cells used to make hair pigments.
Because stress can be considered a form of accelerated ageing, the discovery has raised hopes for treatments that can slow down or even halt normal age-related greying.
More importantly, it could shed light on how ageing depletes stem cells throughout the body, and perhaps point the way to general anti-ageing therapies.
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Meanwhile, if you want your hair to turn a grotesque, unnatural shade of orange that defies the laws of physics and scares animals and children equally, the scientists recommend you become the world's biggest asshole.
CHEERS to the suds of our lives. 85 years ago this week, canned beer made its debut in Richmond, Virginia:
In partnership with the American Can Company, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger's Finest Beer and Krueger's Cream Aleto faithful Krueger drinkers in Richmond, Virginia. Ninety-one percent of the drinkers approved of the canned beer, driving Krueger to give the green light to further production.
Why did they feel the need to can beer? Much easier to hide in your cubicle than a keg.
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Ten years ago in C&J: January 23, 2010
JEERS to another silly flameout. More Democratic Backdown'ism for your enjoyment: the highly-qualified nominee for TSA chief withdrew his name because Republicans said "Boo!" How pathetic. So now the White House will submit another name...and the Republicans will immediately attack him or her and put another hold on the nomination (added to the other bazillion holds they've got going on now) until that person withdraws for having poorly-manicured cuticles or some such nonsense. The only upside to this crapola is the fact that it's made me so mad I need to go calm down with a massive and soothing piece of carrot cake. Maybe two. (I'm really riled.)
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And just one more…
CHEERS to feud food. Today is the high holy day at Daily Kos. Yes…it's National Pie Day. Let us enter the arena:
“Caucuses!” [Splot!] “Primaries!” [Splot!]
"Bernie bros!" [Splot!] "Yang gang!" [Splot!]
"Ideological purity!" [Splot!] "Practical centrism!" [Splot!]
"We must reach out to white working Americans!" [Splot!] "White working Americans must reach out to us!" [Splot!]
"Your polls are weighted wrong!” [Splot!] “The only error in your polls is...your polls!” [Splot!]
"Ginger!" [Splot!] "Mary Ann!" [Splot!]
"I like Joe!" [Splot!] "I like Elizabeth!" [Splot!] "I like Pete!" [Splot!]
"I like Tulsi!" [Splot!] [Splot!] [Splot!] [Splot!] [Splot!] [Splot!] [Splot!] [Splot!]
“The Republican party is nuts!” [Brief cease fire as everyone nods in agreement]
"Woozles!" [Splot!] "Pooties!" [Splot!]
"Love the Civiqs ticker!" [Splot!] "Hate the Civiqs ticker! [Splot!]
"Three point one four one five!" [Splot!] "That's pi, not pie, you idiot!" [Splot!]
"Hi, I'm here to promote Ralph Nader for 2020 and..." [Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot! Splot!]
Well done. Until next January 23rd...go in peace.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
“Nobody likes Bill in Portland Maine, nobody wants to work with him, he gets nothing done. He's a career kiddie pool splasher.”
—Hillary Clinton
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